


a ripple of the waves / rising to a hurricane

by sufianas



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Drowning, Light Angst, M/M, Music Video: Obsession (EXO), Pining, suho is just confused ok someone call him a good boy asap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23064604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sufianas/pseuds/sufianas
Summary: suhø thinks that he is invincible, a demon of the highest order. blood drips from his fingernails. the remnants of a beating heart cling underneath; the only heart he's ever wished to possess: junmyeon's.
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho/ Kim Junmyeon | Suho
Comments: 25
Kudos: 58





	a ripple of the waves / rising to a hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> i actually started this back in january, as a simple pwp. now, seven thousand words later it is a lot more plot and a lot less... explicit. 100% inspired by the scene of junmyeon in the obsession MV where he floats in the art gallery of sorts. the narrative also tends to jump between timelines. let me know if you can tell how i've tried to connect the exo lore, haha!

suho always had a dry sense of humour, junmyeon thinks as he paces the length of the gallery. his fingers trail along the frames housing paintings: feeling the raised edges, the plated gold filigree, the sharp edges. the beginnings of dusk settle in the room; they would be helpful except it provides no semblance of time for junmyeon. every minute he is trapped in this space is dusk, the dusty pinks and purples colour every blank surface of the gallery. it even splatters onto junmyeon, forcing him to raise a hand as he shields his eyes. no matter how hard he pokes or prods, none of it makes sense to him; not the light which finds its way into his little prison where there are no windows, no doors — just junmyeon, and his paintings.

he leans against the wall, head resting beside a canvas. even with his eyes shut, he knows which painting it is. there is an ocean; it rages with the strength of a thousand winds; even the hues of blue force unrest in junmyeon’s chest. he has never thought of water to be anything but serene; it is untrue, he knows. junmyeon remembers the power his fingertips harness, in the way they force the seas to their beck and call. then again, he’d also thought water could never be contained and yet here he is: in a prison, captive. 

the art which fills this gallery, art depicting water is more cruel irony than the joke suho was probably attempting. then again, suho always had a strange sense of humour. perhaps the one thing the scientists had not been able to program into him. 

more than the water which makes most of his body’s composition, junmyeon feels himself filled to the brim with frustration. he remembers days with his mother, the whistle of the pressure cooker in the kitchen as it screamed for his mother’s attention; he never thought he would relate to something like that, but the frustration simmers. anger rests at the tip of his tongue, and junmyeon would scream if not for the fact it would give suho the satisfaction of getting under his skin. the simple thought of it makes his skin crawl; the idea of sharing _anything_ with a man like that, with a creature like that shakes junmyeon to his very core. and yet, he does; suho shares his face, his physique and even his powers. 

to the casual observer, side by side they would be siblings; alone, they could be mistaken for another. it is after all, how the scientists had intended it; as daylight was contrasted with midnight, existing in the same plane — suho was meant to complete junmyeon. an experiment to see if the powers of those from exoplanet could be harvested, recreated in a laboratory setting. it was different in the earlier days; they were allowed free roam of the facility, assimilate themselves amongst the etiquette of those on this planet. that all changed when the deux trials were completed. 

if junmyeon was the blueprint, then suho was his poor copy; an impostor who only looks like him. if junmyeon’s blood is red, then the ichor which runs through suho’s veins glisters, flecks of gold and silver catching the light; too precious to be spilled. junmyeon’s blood however, is fair game. he sinks to the floor, eyes still shut as a hand raises; his fingers flit along his cheekbone, upon a space where a scar should rest. it has since faded into his skin, but junmyeon knows exactly where it rests upon suho’s skin. the wound stretches along under his eye, never scarring; it does not ooze either but the blood remains, glittering. 

it taunts junmyeon whenever suho comes to visit; the guilt settles in his chest, stomach full of shame. for what? he isn’t exactly sure. he is never sure of what he feels when suho enters a room; instead of water, it feels as if his replica controls air. it would explain the lightheadedness, the way it becomes difficult to breathe as if the air is being sapped right out of his lungs. a flash of lightning, and junmyeon lifts his head up just in time to hear a clap of thunder. for a brief moment, he wonders if he is being saved; if there is a way out of the hell he has found himself imprisoned in.

the moment fades and a comfortable dusk settles once again; the light plays with the painting frames and gold reflects off the wood, spreading in the room. under any other circumstances, junmyeon would have found the moment beautiful. now, he feels saturated. the resplendence eats away at junmyeon, cutting into his skin to leave scars that he can only feel; never see. 

it takes effort but junmyeon rights himself; it is a testament to his will that his knees do not buckle the second he stands, the way he feels they will. he places his palm on one of the paintings, skin bare against the canvas. if he shuts his eyes, if he really _believes,_ it will come to life; the way he has so often imagined. his hopes are hinged on something that has only happened once before. the empty pool in marseilles; the water which burst through the floodgates of his mind and engulfed him, filling the pool. he draws from that image now, envisioning the ocean which has been painted. 

he starts small, imagines the clamouring of the waves, the howl of the salty ocean winds as another torrent surges upon the tide. junmyeon imagines himself in the water, feels the telltale throb run down his dorsum and he arches into the feeling; spine taut with anticipation. it’s so close, close enough to taste, to feel; he allows himself to feel.

junmyeon drowns.

🌊

it is an odd feeling, to wake up in a body that you do not recall owning; to possess a name you do not recall being given to you; to hold powers in the palm of your hand that are more potent than any human should have. suho likens the feeling of observing oneself in a cracked mirror; the visage is recognizable, but does not feel real when it is distorted through the cracks. that is what he feels; disjointed, as if someone glued together pieces of a puzzle that did not fit; puzzle pieces they then _forced_ together. even now, the ichor which runs through his veins does not feel like his own; from the first day, it felt as if suho had been tossed to the wolves. guardian, that is what his name means; he is still unsure what exactly it _is_ that he is guarding.

so suho observes; he watches the one the scientists adore. it is the person looking back at him from the mirror: junmyeon. he raises an arm, and the latter imitates the action; their expressions however, do not mirror one another. the excitement awash upon suho’s features is quickly wiped when he watches the confusion in his likeness’s image morph into fear. he cannot speak yet, but he tries; he wails, begs for his facsimile not to feel anxiety at his presence; it is no use, junmyeon has already turned away. the slow burning warmth in suho’s chest, a learned emotion he gathered from watching junmyeon, hardens until it feels as though the blood in his veins is ice.

if it is a monster junmyeon fears, then who is suho to deny him? he takes it upon himself to become junmyeon’s worst nightmare. he was never made to be good, suho learns as he drains a man of his life force, feeding on the water which runs through the nameless victim. he was made to oppose junmyeon; an experiment to see if the scientists could take everything that was good and corrupt it somehow. 

even so, somewhere, suho wishes to possess junmyeon. be it the self righteous curve of his jaw, or the assured stance when he speaks, suho wishes to wrap himself around junmyeon, intertwine them so it is impossible to decipher where suho begins and where junmyeon ends.

“are you dreaming of him again?” 

chen’s voice pierces through his monologue and suho looks up, frown marring his features. “i do not dream of anyone,” his teeth gritted, suho practically snarls the words.

“i don’t understand why you think any of us believe that. all you ever do is _obsess_ over him.”

kai hesitates before resting a hand on suho’s shoulder, pressing him back into the chair, “easy. remember what happened last time you lost control?”

how could suho forget? he’d left a trail of fossilized skeletons in his wake, each corpse drained of its blood, its water. he had heard the same complaint from chanyeöl for weeks on end when the fire user had to burn the bodies, removing any trace of their existence from the planet. 

safe to say, suho tries his best to keep his anger tempered now; if not for the prevention of carnage, then for the moaning the others would subject him to. as leader, as _guardian,_ he has to look after them; how can he do that if he spends all his time making humans suffer for his mercurial nature.

that is not to say he does not wish to; there are days he wishes to throw caution to the wind, to undo each and every chain which binds him, binds him to his clan, binds him to _junmyeon_. perhaps if he had never been bound to such a pristine copy, maybe then suho would have stood a chance; a chance to become his own person. a person he is not; he is a half-life, and suho knows that is what he will always be. how can he exist in his own sphere when there is another man with his face, with his physique, with the same powers as him? he envies the triad, the ones who have gotten away. away from the clutches of the experiments, from the deux trials, they can exist as their own person. a person who does not have to worry about an imposter, even if suho is the imposter in question. he can lower his voice, relax its rhythm so it resembles junmyeon's dulcet tone, not unlike the gentle shimmering ripples upon a lake; in comparison, suho's sharp staccato is the thunderous waves of the ocean on a night when the moon calls to it.

"have you visited him today?"

suho looks up, breaking away from his inner turmoil (or as sëhun would call it, his misunderstood villain monologue), and raises an eyebrow at the question. "you know i have not, he does not wish to see me."

"oh come on, suho. when has that ever stopped you?"

a fair point. there were days when suho would make his presence known, however unwelcome he was in junmyeon's space. in the earlier days, he would allow himself to be guided by the researchers into junmyeon's cell; he remembers the simple metal plate with the CASE-01 engraved into its centre. on the days he was allowed to visit on his own, once he had become acquainted enough with the facility and possessed the mental faculties to walk the long, winding halls on his own, suho remembers the way his fingers would trace along the engraving, nails scratching against the grooved words.

he had always wondered why he never had an engraved plate of his own. he had a name, as did junmyeon; they both belonged to the same facility, so it would make sense for the same courtesies be extended to the deux trials. this was of course, the days before suho had realized the hierarchy. the exoplanet experiments were the darlings of the facility; their greatest achievement. the deux trials were new, they were the children who had to prove themselves, to step out of the facility. 

"i'm trying something new. it's called humanity." as he speaks, suho reaches for _Maxims and Other Reflections._ it is a new find, something he picked up along the way when they had been raiding abandoned cities for supplies. the whirr of the refrigerator relaxes him as he settles back into the (stolen) couch, thumbing the well worn pages of La Rochefoucauld's insights. 

"humanity?" baëkhyun's voice thunders as he steps out of one of the many rooms on the above ground levels of this home they have occupied. suho doesn't have a clue what happened to its previous residents, but he supposes its just as well; they must be dead, the fate they would have met if they were to meet the members of the deux-trial. 

"yes baëkhyun, _humanity_."

"you mean what the scientists showed us? giving us a face, giving us powers only to learn they already their favourites and we were just some playtime experiment?"

of all the members, baëkhyun is the least adjusted. suho wrinkles his nose, a single line marring his otherwise serene features. he thumbs the page, creasing its corner as he shuts the book and sets it down on the table. "you should relax. we already showed them."

laughter echoes in the house, travelling through the passages. of them all, perhaps the most rancorous laughter belongs to kai. "we showed them alright," his voice is gruff, still rough around the edges as if one had taught a jungle cat to speak. "perhaps next time, they will _plan_ for how to control sentiency."

"big word, kai. where did you learn it?" chen's grin is no less feline than it had been moments ago when teasing suho. "do you know what it means?"

a growl. 

suho watches with dim interest as kai's heels dig into the floor. at least the floor isn't carpeted, he thinks to himself. 

"what's that?" chen's grin widen as he spreads himself onto the couch.

a louder growl this time as kai begins his prowl towards his assailant. 

he should interfere, suho thinks as he moves an idle hand over the whitish blonde hair he finds on the arm rest of his couch. then again, he thinks, maybe he can let it go on a few more minutes. they are so sorely lacking in entertainment these days. 

"what happened to the words you were using a min--"

chen is cut off by kai's materialization in front of him as slender fingers wrap themselves around chen's neck.

suho sighs. "if you're going to fight, take it outside boys. i don't want you breaking any furniture."

🌊

in the beginning, there was no war; no sides to be chosen, but the specimens from exoplanet were forced to call the facilities their home. their powers could be harnessed for the military, the president assured; each political candidate after the next crafted different ideas for the fate which awaited these aliens who had been captured. to the scientists, they were an enigma; endless possibilities of what could be done with new strands of dna. over time, the aliens began to call the facility home, be it from prolonged stockholm syndrome or genuine feelings of attachment; the government feared they had become too soft, they feared nothing destructive could come of life forces who had grown stagnant, complacent. 

and so, the deux trials were ordered. from the scientist reports, it became glaringly obvious that the specimens did not know how to channel their powers as weapons of destruction; without such a skillset, they were rendered useless to the government, to the military warding off threats from invaders. the deux trials were meant to permanently alter the dna sequences of the aliens, create new beings out of genetic mutations. the hope was these experiments would be everything the aliens were not: uncouth, reckless, violent and most important of them all, dangerous. 

as if the deux trials were bottled nuclear weapons, powerful enough to destroy cities, populations and even ecosystems.

interactions were allowed between the experiments and the aliens, the scientists lacking patience to teach human cues to their experiments; some would even argue that scientists were not the best people to educate the experiments on such matters regardless. the customs of the aliens, of exoplanet would be absorbed by the deux trials, which in turn (they hoped) would teach them about tapping into their powers. 

the scientists were unable to force the potential to the surface: a sizzling flame going out in a few seconds, flickering lights before they turned off, but perhaps the weakest link of them all was suho. even in an arena full of water, he was unable to compel the atoms to do his bidding; his counterpart in comparison, could envision water and force it to appear out of thin air. displeasure marred the features of the scientists as they hunched over their tablets, day and night becoming one outside their windows, unable to find a solution.

the answer, they decided after weeks of scratching their heads, weeks of watching the members of the deux trials fail to build their aptitude, of falling behind schedule and having to face the government sector with flushed cheeks and downward cast gazes, was to put the imitation with the archetype. what could go wrong? this was a scientific facility, and as the learned ones, they were the ones with all the power. thus, the cells meant for one now housed two; a measure which was met with little to no resistance. after the years the aliens had spent in the clinical four walls of the establishment, they had grown numb.

🌊

something isn't right; suho feels it in the core of his stomach, it weighs him down not unlike an anchor. the sensation of sinking washes over him, his chest tightening with the effort it takes to breath. he clutches at the arm rest, book clattering to the floor before shutting his eyes. 

“suho?”

the voice calling to him seems garbled somehow, as if the speaker is miles away, locked away. there is a viscose quality to the echo, drowning the syllables in palpable liquid. 

“suho? what’s wrong?”

he opens his mouth, then shuts it. he can’t speak; the heaviness now weighs upon his voice box, as if a single word will choke him.

there is a hand now, it shakes him; he feels the jolt against his limbs but the motion itself seems weak, as if it is hampered by the same liquid which is slowly filling his lungs. he gasps, a fish out of water, when he finally comes to and finds himself laying on the floor.

concerned faces peer over him, clouding his vision as he blinks rapidly in an attempt to make sense of the sensation which passed over him. in the facility they would call it a panic attack, except it was never a problem _suho_ had. no, panic attacks were reserved for junmyeon and junmyeon alone. they would rise with his powers, water filling each crevice of the room, drowning the inanimate objects unfortunate enough to be in the wrong space at the wrong time.

a certain urgency crawls into his throat; an untamed creature roars in his chest. it rattles his ribcage, wailing, scratching, biting at whatever part of suho it can claim. this is nothing like the storms he has fared before; nothing like the torrents of his impulse in which he is swept away. ache. it is the only way to describe what is settling in his veins. a hollow feeling which fizzles in the pit of his stomach. suho staggers when he finally manages to stand. 

kai is there, surprisingly gentle arm guiding around his waist, to steady him. “suho, what’s wrong?” even the tone in his voice is suddenly unfamiliar to him; it fades too, reminiscent of their earlier days. days in the laboratory when they knew not what was expected of them, knew nothing of the world they had been brought into.

“jun…” he tries to form his facsimile’s name. his tongue is slower than his wit, heavy as it curls around the syllables not unlike the serpent who misled eve. “junmyeon…”

there is a groan. “not this again. do you care about us? or do you only care about him?” 

the lights flicker, as temperamental as their wielder.

he pushes away kai’s hand, steady in his stride. the others may not understand but the ache in suho’s chest only grows deeper; a chasm splits within him, separating his heart from the rest of him. he has to get to junmyeon. 

“where are you going?”

“just let him be! he’ll be back when junmyeon doesn’t spare him a cursory glance.”

suho shuts the door to rancorous laughter.

🌊

their first few meetings had been odd. once junmyeon had gotten over the initial shock of seeing his features replicated on another individual, his disgust dulled. replacing it was a morbid sort of fascination; whenever he glanced in suho’s direction, the latter would already be watching him. there was something in his gaze, an unnerving sort of quality in which suho’s look fixated on junmyeon. a devotion which filtered through the cracks of the facility.

one thing was for certain; something so pure did not belong in a place like this. in a place like this, it would be beaten out of suho, or tortured, or something heinously worse. junmyeon had long since learned not to put anything beyond the scientists. and yet, despite his best intentions, something stirs in junmyeon’s gut; it pulls at him the way his power did all those years ago. 

he feels the water grow restless under his fingertips, the liquid swirls without consent when he uses the showers, watches it shift in its container when he sits with the rest of his kin in the cafeteria. it burgeons when his gaze lands on suho. he does not want to but junmyeon starts watching him too; he watches the way he holds his utensils, fingers morphed over the cutlery like a child, or a dinosaur; he denotes the way his eyes scrunch up in childlike enjoyment when one of his kin cracks a joke, or even when something as simple, as the silver of a nametag glints against the overhead lights.

so he lets his guard down; there is no rational explanation for as to why but then again, when has the sea ever been rational? it is mercurial in its tides, and junmyeon’s emotions are no different. he extends a hand forward to suho, bridging the distance between them.

—

it feels like something out of a dream. suho has learned to slot himself in a corner, to blend himself into the furniture if he tries hard enough. he only speaks when he is spoken to, and never raises his voice beyond a gentle whisper. of all the experiments from the deux trials, he is what they call, the _weakest._ he tries so hard to please, yearns to hear praise the way his fellow kin receive in the training centres. of it all however, what stings is junmyeon’s rejection of him. 

he does not mean any harm; suho had tried explaining that, over and over, until he went hoarse. he simply wants to learn, the reason the scientists had even paired them together in the first place. but junmyeon has never spoken to him, unless it was to explain: _you stay on your side of the room, and i’ll stay on mine,_ and beyond his initial attempts, suho didn’t try. instead, he waited; he observed; he even _imitated_ the way junmyeon would flick his wrist, bringing forth water on his command. of course, when suho attempted the same, all he would get for his efforts were a few droplets.

his features knit together, eyes in a squint and mouth curved downwards when he hears someone speaking to him. not just any someone, but junmyeon himself. he wonders if the egregious burst of happiness shows on his features; he wonders if junmyeon can read him like an open book. 

“you’re doing it wrong.”

suho erects his spine, afraid he will be called out for his faulty posture. he does not expect junmyeon to stand behind him. at this distance, or lack thereof, with junmyeon’s chest pressing against his back, suho finds it hard to think of anything else. 

a hand snakes forward, cupping his own. “you have to let the water come to you.” even his voice is soothing, hypnotic like the crashing of the low tide against the sandy banks. 

“come to me?” he does not mean to sound daft, slow. that is the last thing he wants and yet, around junmyeon he fumbles. he is nothing but a tongue tied fool.

“come to you,” junmyeon reassures; his voice is taut, like the sails of a yacht. it guides suho, asks him to trust and so he does. “you should feel a tug in your gut, don’t be afraid of it.”

suho shuts his eyes; junmyeon’s presence washes over him. in the distance he hears the roar of waves, it beckons to him. he feels as if he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, listening to the tides. his centre tilts and when suho opens his eyes, there’s an orb of water floating above his palm. “i…” 

“you did it.” the smile in junmyeon’s voice is unmistakable. the emotion in his voice is not one suho recognizes. he’s unfamiliar with the warmth which settles in the words, grounds them in reality. what he does know however, is he would give anything in the world to always hear it.

it subdues the hurricane in his chest, churning through the dissonance until suho is no more harmful than a tranquil lake. 

the warmth disappears all too suddenly, and his eyes widen. he pivots on his heel to meet junmyeon’s form. gaze questioning why he let go of suho’s hand.

“try it yourself.” there it is again, the soft consonance of junmyeon’s tone; it sedates suho, makes him much more susceptible to what he’s being told. 

“but i…”

“yes, you can.”

he can. nobody has said that to him before, certainly not with the reassurance he hears bleeding into junmyeon’s voice; especially not with the determination he can see in his facsimile’s eyes. overwhelmed with the urge to make junmyeon happy, to prove him right — suho tries. 

the water fails him, deems him unworthy without the comforting presence of junmyeon lifting him up. his disappointment must show on his features: in the downturn of his lips, the slump of his shoulders, because an arm wraps around his shoulders.

instinct tells him to pull away. he almost does, but there is a subconscious tug in his chest; it urges him to stay, to fold himself into junmyeon’s embrace; to rest the weary ache of his newfound existence upon the latter’s shoulders, to fall.

it’s as if junmyeon can read his mind, and suho has half a mind to ask if he has telepathic abilities; he swallows the comment, unsure if he can joke with junmyeon. “it’s okay,” he whispers, and suho is inclined to believe him.

—

the hours bleed into one another, pouring into days and junmyeon watches as the normally viscose mistress known as time careened past his very own eyes. he looks away from the window, away from the other members of exoplanet enjoying their allotted time in the outside. after a few mishaps — when chanyeol nearly set the field of grass on fire in his unbridled enthusiasm — the scientists had been reluctant to let them back out. junmyeon had convinced them to; it was his job after all, as the protector of his kind, to keep their best interests at heart. 

most days, junmyeon would be out there. he does not care much for the sun, or its blistering heat; especially when it feels as if the reservoir in his chest will evaporate upon contact; but he does enjoy the feel of the grass against his skin. the whetted blades of green brushing against his biceps as he tucks his arms under his head, the wind which flaps violently on its worst days, and whistles a flirtatious remark on its best — all amalgamate to remind junmyeon he is alive. 

they may not be where they _desire_ but at least the blood still courses through their veins; at least, their hearts still syncopate to a lively rhythm. most days, junmyeon thinks it is selfish to ask for anything more.

he looks to suho, and desire overcomes his very being. most days, junmyeon thinks it is selfish to ask for anything more but on days like these, when the wind flirts with the strands on suho’s hair, playing a light hearted game; on days like these, when he thinks suho’s smile could rival the light which shines from baekhyun’s palms; on days like these, junmyeon finds himself wanting to ask for suho. 

his cheeks pink when suho’s gaze meets his, giving him a half smile. junmyeon looks away, face burning, humiliated at being caught admiring the other man. there are times he thinks suho wants him to: evenings when they are both trapped in the clinical four walls of his room. there is a heady tension which settles in the air, making it stale, making it impossible for junmyeon to think of anything outside of the constant litany of _suhosuhosuhosuhosuho,_ until he becomes buoyant with his desire for the latter.

suho’s running up to him now, “junmyeon, come on!” a pale hand curls around his wrist, locking it in a grip and junmyeon is helpless.

“where?”

“baëk and baekhyun want to play! they’ve already convinced yeøl and chanyeol!”

the enthusiasm in suho’s voice is infectious, like a child desperate to play on the swings one last time before his mother takes him home. junmyeon cannot help the smile which plays upon his own lips; he’s powerless against suho, victim to his every whim. “alright, i’ll play.”

suho’s blinding smile in response makes all of it worth it, and junmyeon feels something bloom in his chest; something he has not felt in a long while: _hope._

—

normally the scientists avoid letting any of their subjects peruse information that isn’t given to them; suho has seen this multiple times, experienced it too as he memorizes every piece of signage in the laboratory out of boredom. so when he arrives back to the room he shares with junmyeon, his eyes widen at the unfamiliar book in his hands. the single splash of colour in an otherwise monochromatic room. 

his eyes are drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, a magpie to anything that glitters. his gaze focuses on junmyeon’s delicate fingers, flicking pages; almost instinctively, suho wonders what those fingers would look like around his throat, what they would look like wrapped around his cock. 

he coughs, drawing junmyeon’s attention.

“oh, you’re back.” junmyeon’s voice is a pleasant hum, as he shuts the book and sets it down by the steel trap of a nightstand. 

suho’s throat feels uncomfortably tight, warmth flooding through every crevice of his body. he does not trust himself to speak, so only nods. a soft, decisive move.

the wrong move, for junmyeon’s eyebrows furrow together. he stands, moving to step towards suho and habitually, suho takes a step back. “is everything okay?”

_no,_ he wants to scream. no, everything is _not_ okay. it is not okay because junmyeon should not be allowed to stand there, ethereal and perfect. it is not okay because how does junmyeon expect suho to _not_ close the distance between them, to _not_ kiss him the way he has wanted to for weeks, and months on end.

time passes slowly in the facility and on most days, if he were not told, suho would not know the difference between a sunday and a tuesday. except his feelings for junmyeon keep him on edge; they settle at the base of his spine like a bad injury, in his throat like an acrid fruit; or in his chest where his heart thuds so loud, suho is afraid of junmyeon hearing. 

“suho?”

_fuck._ the concern in junmyeon’s voice sends a shiver down his spine; it must be _sick_ for him to be turned on by this, by the care in his clone’s tone. “y-yeah, i’m fine.”

judging by the way junmyeon’s eyebrows do not unfurl, suho is not so sure the latter believes him. he is right in thinking so when junmyeon steps even closer. “are you sure?”

now there’s nowhere to hide; not when junmyeon is so close to him. close enough for him to see the flecks of gold in his eyes, molten into the brown of his iris. it takes suho’s breath away; junmyeon _always_ takes his breath away. and here, with him so close, there is only one thing on suho’s mind. 

he closes the gap between them, hand cradling junmyeon’s jaw as he draws him in for a kiss.

the ocean clamours in his ear, the way it does to a child who presses a seashell to his ear. it roars, echoes and undulates in him as he clings to junmyeon, fingers fisting in his shirt. suho laps up the soft moans which fall from junmyeon’s lips with his own mouth. it isn’t enough, no matter how much they touch. suho _desires_ junmyeon; it burns in his chest, scorches his fingertips, and he shoves. he presses junmyeon down into the mattress, watching the way the latter’s back arches off the surface, arms locking around suho’s neck.

“we shouldn’t,” but the protest sounds weak and half-hearted, even to suho’s ears. if that weren’t enough proof, the way junmyeon’s fingers scrabble at the hem of suho’s shirt is evidence enough. 

he has never been one to deny junmyeon of anything, and suho is about to start now so he lets go of junmyeon long enough to strip himself of his clothes. he presses his face into junmyeon’s neck, lips pressed to his clavicle. his heart thunders in his chest, not unlike the rumblings of waves on a particularly stormy night. 

junmyeon is there; steadfast, unyielding, a lighthouse in the darkness, an anchor set on the seabed. his fingers tangle in suho’s hair, and he whimpers. “want you…” the desire in his voice runs it ragged, heavy with want, dripping with _need._ “want you so bad.”

a laugh, one suho feels rather than hears; he feels the echo reverb in junmyeon’s chest and decides there has never been anything more beautiful, nor will there ever be. 

he pouts, afflicted. “don’t make fun of me.” suho feels desperation crawl across his skin, it settles against him like fog, clouding his judgement, clouding his antics until he’s rutting against junmyeon’s thigh, desperate for friction.

perhaps junmyeon takes pity on him, the tinkling laughter following him again, because suho’s on his back now, junmyeon hovering over him. 

“i’ll take care of you,” suho hears, garbled as if junmyeon is speaking through aqueous layers, and it is the last thing he hears before junmyeon’s lips seal around his cock.

ecstasy floods through suho’s veins; the walls caving around him as he is filled to the brim.

🌊

the scientists are humiliated, their projects shut down, and their funding cut off.laughingstock is what they become, a group of highbrows who were so self-involved they let their experiments get away. they grew complacent is what is said at the press conference, those at the Ministry of Science donning their most sorrowful expressions as they apologize on a broadcast that will be made public at the eight o’clock mandatory news screenings across the territories. 

after years of keeping the extraterrestrials captive in their laboratories, in their facilities, the scientists had grown fond of the aliens; they had, foolishly, thought their lab rats were too. the members of exoplanet were clever, too clever;they were simply biding their time, waiting for the opportune moment to strike, not unlike a cobra watching the hand who feeds it. once they had destroyed the facility in their escape, leaving behind casualties in the form of collateral, it became impossible to find them.

all the scientists were left with were the outcomes of the deux trials. in their haste, or perhaps in a deliberate effort, the extraterrestrials had left their clones behind. so they rebuild, because now the aliens from exoplanet are a threat, something that needs to be contained and the scientists convince, first the Ministry of Science, then the Ministry of Defense, and then finally the general public to pour more taxpayer dollars into their experiments. the deux trials will be used to neutralize the threat, to dig the extraterrestrials out of hiding, wherever they may be: for the _safety_ of the territories.

this is a new dawn; one which is charred, a place where nothing blooms; a place devoid of _hope._

🌊

the feeling does not disappear as suho had hoped; instead, it amplifies. it fills him to the brim, until suho himself feels as if he may be choking on the water that resides in his body. hands come around his own throat as he sinks to his knees, feeling his ichor bubble underneath his skin as if trying to boil him from the inside out. 

he does not know what junmyeon is doing, or even _how_ he is doing it but it is not something he expected from the latter; someone so mild mannered could never best him. after all, he had hardly put up a _worthy_ fight when the deux members had rounded him and his merry little band of aliens months ago. 

suho remembered looking down at junmyeon’s face, pressed into the sand by suho’s shiny black loafers and wondered _why_ he’d ever idolized someone so weak. he’d made sure to tell junmyeon that too, spitting in his face, giving him a kick for good measure before he nodded to kai to transport the pathetic body of the man he had once exalted to their base.

he’d been lying; even then, seeing junmyeon’s face sent a shiver down suho’s spine that he had been unwilling to admit. all those years they had trained, all those years they had been taught to kill the aliens on sight, suho had prayed he would never come across junmyeon. he knew, if it came down to it, he would not be able to do what the scientists were demanding of them. suho had been intimate with junmyeon, been friendly with the rest of the members of the exoplanet, and he knew they were not the threats the government was making them out to be. they were not the threats the military had weaponized them to fight against. 

now, as he races to get to junmyeon, suho longs for simpler days. he longs for the days they would spend trapped in those four walls together, junmyeon’s hands under his as he taught suho how to _use_ his powers. it was nothing like it is now; the weaponization had only taught him how to use water against his enemies, how to drain his opponent of all the water in his body, how to create the most violent storms with a simple flick of his wrist. 

they’ve been keeping junmyeon in a little shack by the ocean, close enough to a water source so it would not kill the alien, but secure enough so he would not be able to escape. suho bites his lower lip, wonders if the uneasy feeling which settles over him is more out of anxiety or fear that junmyeon has managed to wreak destruction in ways nobody could have predicted. it would be like him for sure, suho mulls; junmyeon always managed the unexpected.

the stories had been endless, in the first year at the facility. the stories of how junmyeon was powerful enough to drain all the seven seas of their water, of how the water spoke to him as if he had emerged from its banks, not unlike the birth of aphrodite. suho remembers that one a little differently, remembers the tightness in his pants at the thought of junmyeon emerging from the sea banks, stark naked, water glistening against his perfect frame. he shuts his eyes, steels his nerves, and with a quick succession of breaths, stops in front of the door. 

even the air is different, stagnant almost. it should be moist, sweat gathering against suho’s back but instead it is _stale._ dry air packaged and its contents set free. the zephyr feels wrong as it blows against his cheek, too sharp, too empty. almost as if someone had sucked all of the water, and subsequently all the moisture from it.

suho’s heart sinks to his stomach. 

his hand hesitates over the doorknob.

_coward,_ his conscience whispers. it sounds suspiciously like junmyeon whispering in his ear, and as suho shuts his eyes to dispel the sound, he can envision it. junmyeon pressed to his back, arm around his waist holding him up, his teeth grazing against suho’s earlobe as he whispers filthy nothings into suho’s ear, who can barely feel his knees. 

suho forces the memory to dissipate and pushes open the door, enveloped in the liquefied atmosphere. it is almost impossible to see junmyeon through the reservoir he has amassed, but junmyeon seems to forget they share an element. he sees him all too clearly, floating in the middle of a disaster of his own making. he knows what junmyeon is doing, feels the tug in his own stomach — one he ignores.

this is a test. suho, who can only destroy; suho, who has never been taught to _save_ a life with his element, does not know how to pass this. and yet, it is so fucking _like_ junmyeon to test him even now that a laugh bubbles in his throat. it falls past his lips, sounding nothing like him in its disjointed chords. he is terrified; for the first time in his life, suho is terrified because of failure. failing means _losing_ junmyeon, and that is a reality he has never taught himself to cope with.

those at the military who weaponized him taught him to drain a man’s body of its liquid; they never taught him how to _return_ it. 

funnily enough, it is once again junmyeon’s voice which slithers into his ear; another memory: _you have to let the water come to you._

suho empties his mind, allows all thought to leave it except the litany of _junmyeonjunmyeonjunmyeon_ which echoes on repeat, flooding every corner of his thought until there is nowhere to hide. the tug in his chest is more insistent, his fingers tingle with untapped energy. he hears a whirl around him, not unlike the draining of a tap, but suho doesn’t dare open his eyes in fear of breaking its momentum. the magic in his chest isn’t his own, it is borrowed; he is nobody’s child, but he knows junmyeon is a child of the water. 

the water never refuses one of its own.

🌊

when junmyeon comes to, he is surrounded by warmth. he shifts, feeling the ache in his stomach, in his head from the stunt he’d pulled. his eyes feel heavy, too heavy to open but still he tries. he’s trapped in a cage, one of sinewy flesh and junmyeon tilts his head to catch suho tightening his grip on him, almost as if he’s afraid junmyeon will leave.

the smallest of smiles plays upon junmyeon’s lips as he shifts enough to tangle his fingers in suho’s hair. “good boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos, as always, are appreciated (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ 
> 
> come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/522overdose) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/overdosesupremacist)


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